A Will and a Way Read Online Free

to bear.
    Wetting his lips, he tried to swallow the knot in his throat, but his voice still came out in a rasp. “I saw it on the calendar. It was right there in black and white.”
    She shot him a murderous glare, snatched her glove from his grasp, and began to wriggle her fingers into it. “Then someone had best tell Mother Nature, because I haven’t felt my toes in more than ten days.”
    He stared straight into her eyes. “I’d be happy to feel them for you.”
    She laughed. “No. Thank you,” she added as an afterthought. The amusement in her eyes warred with the incredulity in her tone. “I appreciate the offer.”
    Will smiled back at her full stop. He’d spent years—no, decades—honing his skills. He knew when he was getting somewhere with a woman. She didn’t want to go. Not really. She just wanted to be convinced it was okay to be tempted to stay.
    “Damn.” He served up a playful leer and a side of incorrigible. “Anything else you want felt?”
    “You’re very kind, but I don’t think so.”
    He stepped closer, crowding her a little. “I’m not kind at all, and maybe you’re thinking too much.”
    But she didn’t blush and look away, his Betty. No, she stood toe-to-toe with him and stared him straight in the eye. “I’ve had two glasses of wine, and I’m not thinking clearly.”
    “Good. I love it when a beautiful woman stops thinking clearly. Improves my chances.”
    She smirked. “I doubt your chances need…enhancements.”
    He took her hand and began pulling the soft knit glove off finger-by-finger. “It’s cold out there and warm in here.” Her unresisting hand landed in his palm. It felt good. Damn good. “Stay a little while longer, Betty Asher. You’re the prettiest thing to happen to The Pump in forty years.”
    “The Pump?”
    “That’s what the locals call it.” His eyes locked on hers, he brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “Tell me, Betty Asher, are you a local?”
    She blinked and jerked her hand away. “I am now.”
    With brisk, business-like precision, she removed the other glove and made a point of looking around the darkened barroom as she tucked the pair into the pocket of her ugly coat. “You’ve been hanging out in this bar for forty years? I didn’t know barflies lived so long.”
    He had to laugh. Pretty, smart, and sharp. A lethal combination indeed. “Well, you might have noticed that the whole place is pretty well-preserved.” He nodded to the neon lights and backlit signs decorating the paneled walls. “Marty keeps me under a highball glass during the day. Dontcha, Marty?”
    The bearded bartender didn’t even glance up from the glass he was drying. “What answer you lookin’ for here?”
    “A yes will do.”
    Marty bobbed his balding head. “Yep. Sure do.”
    “Thank you.” Will turned up the wattage on his smile and gestured to the stool she’d abandoned. “I grew up around the corner. Marty’s sister Mary Jean used to babysit me.”
    When Betty slid onto the stool, he snatched the cap from her head and tucked it into the over-sized pocket in her parka. She didn’t shy away. And he didn’t embarrass himself by crawling into her lap and curling up like a cat, even though the casual intimacy of the gesture unleashed a mushroom cloud of hope in his chest.
    Fate. Hope. Betty.
    This was too good to be true.
    She gave him a shy smile as she unwound the scarf. “I bet you needed lots of minding.”
    “Oh, I did. Poor Mary Jean retired at seventeen, never to babysit again.” He snagged the leg of the stool beside hers with his foot and dragged it a few inches closer. “Give the lady some of the wine you keep for Sister Laurent, Marty,” he called to the bartender. “And toss that boxed crap you keep trying to pass off. I’ve got socks older than that.”
    “Socks!”
    Will jumped, startled by her outburst, but she just beamed up at him.
    “That’s what the wine tasted like. Kerosene, with notes of dirt and a hint of sweat